Six things we want to see in Samsung’s Galaxy S IV

Samsung is expected to unveil a new flagship next week; here's our wish list.

The Galaxy S III's days as Samsung's flagship are drawing to a close. The Ars editors tell all about what they want in its successor.

Andrew Cunningham

We're less than a week away from Samsung's Unpacked event on March 14, at which the company is widely expected to reveal the successor to its popular Galaxy S III smartphone. Ars will be on the scene with a liveblog and our other, usual event coverage. But in the days leading up to the reveal, we wanted to take some time to discuss what we expect (and what we hope) Samsung will reveal when it takes the wraps off its next handset.

What follows is the Ars staff's wish list for Samsung's next phone. You don't have to agree with what we want (and let us know if you don't, because we'll be doing a follow-up with your most requested features next week), but if Samsung hits all of these marks with its next Galaxy we think the company will have another hit on its hands.

1) Android 4.2

Enlarge/ Months after release, Google's Nexus phones remain the only ones on the market with Android 4.2.

Andrew Cunningham

There were a bunch of Android phones at Mobile World Congress this year, but the only one that even said it would come with Android 4.2—the Asus PadFone—was actually running Android 4.1.

Granted, Android 4.2 was a bigger update for tablets than it was for phones (especially once you discount things like stock keyboard and notification center enhancements that Samsung is likely to chuck in favor of its TouchWiz UI anyway). However, Samsung is the biggest Android device manufacturer on the planet. It's so big that Google is kind of afraid of its impact on the ecosystem. It would be nice to see the company commit to setting a good example by pushing for more-prompt software updates.

There are some indications that we're going to get our wish here—leaked screenshots of an Android 4.2 update for the Galaxy S III suggest that Samsung is actively working on an update. And since 4.2 includes some of the S IV's rumored features, this suggests that the update will land on the newer phone first. Our fingers are crossed.

2) A non-AMOLED display (or maybe not?)

The debate over the virtues and drawbacks of AMOLED and PenTile screens continues to be divisive. Even Ars staffers can't agree on whether Samsung should ditch the display technology in its new phone or double down on it. The short version is that AMOLED screens can suffer from over-saturated colors and slightly fuzzy text, but that they can make up for this by being a bit cheaper to produce, consuming less battery power, and having better contrast (with deep blacks being particularly noteworthy). What side of the debate you come down on depends largely on what you value in a screen.

Microsoft Editor Peter Bright came out swinging in favor of Samsung's screen technology, though. "I don’t give a damn about PenTile whiners. I want the deep blacks, the bright colors, and the high contrast," he said. "If they can get RGB (i.e., non-PenTile) AMOLED, so much the better, if only because it makes the whiners shut up. But even PenTile is fine, because I don’t look at my screen with a magnifying glass all day."

You can't please everyone, and whatever Samsung does here it looks like someone is going to be unhappy. In either case, there's some precedent for both choices—Samsung's phones have tended to stick to AMOLED displays, but tablets like the Galaxy Note 10.1 and the Note 8.0 have used more traditional RGB displays.

3) Keep the size manageable

The trend with high-end, flagship phones in the Android ecosystem has been to make them bigger and bigger as time has gone on. But we think the Galaxy S III is already a good size—it's got a 4.8" screen, so it's definitely no slouch. It also feels pretty comfortable to hold.

"I love the current form factor of the GS3 and I don’t know that I want it to get any bigger because it’s the perfect size for my hands right now," said Reviews Editor Florence Ion.

Casey Johnston agrees: "Make the screen as big as you can by spreading it to the edges of the phone, but for God's sake, stop making the body bigger."

Samsung already has a high-end, large-screened phone on the market in the form of the Galaxy Note II, which among other niceties includes a 5.55" touchscreen, a digitizer, and a stylus. We're hoping that Samsung continues to use the Note line for those who truly want huge screens, and that the S phones stick to something a little more comfortable for one hand.

4) Adhere to button standards

Since Ice Cream Sandwich or so, "stock" Android has used three software buttons for phone navigation: a Back button on the left, a Home button in the center, and an application switcher button on the right. Samsung has bucked that trend on all of its recent phones and tablets, using a combination of hardware and capacitive buttons.

Florence Ion likes the style of the buttons, and the fact that they don't take up screen space as software buttons do. "I hope they keep the little 'home' button," she said. "Please, oh please."

However, Peter Bright takes issue with their arrangement. "Standard Android buttons. That’s what I want. It’s what I crave," he said. "I wanted to literally throw the Galaxy S III at the wall because of its use of legacy buttons. Putting the back button on the right is an abomination, and forcing me to have a menu key (often useless) when I could have a multitasking key instead is just plain mean. The new (I say 'new,' I think it’s about two years old now) button layout is much more useful and usable."

5) Think of the battery life!

Some of us are just a little weary of the constant specifications race that continues to play out among the Android handset manufacturers. Ever-larger, ever-denser screens, ever-faster processors, and ever-thinner phones are the most visible results of this competition. The spec that usually gets sacrificed to achieve them: battery life.

Samsung may not feel as pressured as some of the smaller handset manufacturers to get caught up in a specification race—the company's marketshare and profits are way up, as is the Galaxy brand's visibility. Samsung has some breathing room to make a balanced phone that doesn't necessarily blow its competitors' specifications out of the water. Apple has taken a similar approach to its iPhone hardware—fast within reason, but not at the expense of battery life—and that's the path we'd prefer Samsung to take as well.

6) A camera we can love

Finally, we want Samsung's next smartphone to step up its camera game. Phones from other ecosystems—the iPhone and Lumia 920 among them—have made the camera a signature feature. It's time for Samsung to put that same level of emphasis on both the camera hardware itself and the image processing happening in the software.

"I also really hope that the GS4 has a better camera," said Florence Ion. "Samsung needs to strike a deal with some lens manufacturers or something because I’m not happy with the way that photos come out on this phone. Before I had an iPhone, the Android camera situation didn’t bother me too much, but after I had a taste of that—and I started borrowing my boyfriend’s Lumia 920 to take photos of friends in low-light places—I’ve realized how ridiculous it is that my own phone isn’t capable of that. Samsung makes point and shoots—is there a way they could implement that technology and do some tweaks to Android to make photos come out better? The Android camera situation is just a dismal one anyway, but if this is the world’s best-selling Android manufacturer, it needs to step it up."

What about you?

Again, these are just our opinions. We think most of them are pretty reasonable—we like the Galaxy S III, but we'd like it more if all of the above were included in its successor. Sound off and let us know what you'd like to see in Samsung's new flagship, and we'll publish a follow-up before the event next week to showcase your ideas.

I don't understand the gripes with the buttons (beyond it being non-standard, even if it is perfectly "standard" for a Samsung phone). Hold in the home button, and the application switcher is there. I love having both menu, switcher and back buttons easily available - in addition to there being a physical home.

When reading websites in the landscape mode, I prefer to have the home button on the right side, while the menu button stays on the bottom (new tab, favorites, search etc). Consequently this means menu button of the left side, which is the way I like it.

You know, I can live with most of these short comings, however, all I want is a way to upgrade the OS with the latest Android releases. I think this artificial block imposed by Samsung to hold out on the update is the biggest drawback. Yes, I understand Samsung has to put it's TouchWiz touches, but I won't be touching that if they keep playing this game. And yeah, larger battery is always welcome. As for Pentile, it never really bothered me. I had the Samsung S when it first came out and I liked it.

I too love the screen, and I find the button layout easy to use. It's probably just my expectations, but when I tried navigating my wife's newly purchased iPad, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to get back to where I was without returning to the home screen and drilling through the menus again.

I certainly wouldn't suggest Samsung refrain from pushing forward with new features and control schemes that may be better, even if it may seem risky to comfortable users. But the layout and screen are two things I haven't had any qualms with so far.

I have no problem with the buttons. Even Touchwiz is okay if you ditch the actual launcher and replace it with Nova. But Samsung needs to retire SVoice and offer the user a choice of bloatware, much in the way that CleanROM, a Touchwiz derivative has. Sizewise, I'm in favor of a bigger screen but not a bigger overall phone. The SG SIII is a good size.

Better/bigger battery? YES! Hopefully, whatever they introduce for a new battery will fit in the S3 as well!

I'm surprised at the camera comments, one of my favourite features on the s2 and one oof the main reasons I bought the note was for the 8mp camera which I find pretty decent for a phone camera as previously i just didn't use them because they were so poor. The comments here imply samsung are a long way behind other manufacturers which I don't think is true, the S2 camera was at least on par with the iPhone at the time and while Nokia have some impressive tech in their 920 camera, the iPhone camera is nothing special.

As for amoled, I also hope they stay with it - I think the note screen is great and I don't find it suffers from fuzzy text at all, I'd say my eyesight is pretty good. More importantly I haven't come across anyone who has seen the Note screen and wished it was not amoled, quite the opposite on fact - propel are almost always very impressed with it and many of them have since bought an S3,S2 or Note 2.

but when I tried navigating my wife's newly purchased iPad, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to get back to where I was without returning to the home screen and drilling through the menus again.

It's not just you. The problem is each app dev gets to put the UI buttons wherever they want. It took me a while the other day on my Fiancee's iPad to go back a screen in an app, turns out you had to tap the app name/logo in the top left, it had no arrow shape or text that said back. Annoying.

As a Note owner I agree with keeping the size rational. There's no reason, with the Note's existing, to have a bigger S. That said, they could shrink the case. It doesn't need to be quite as precious as the iPhone, but there's a lot of bezel that could go.

Or maybe not--this might be the time that Samsung doesn't change much at all. The S3 is pretty ubiquitous; why not keep the physical dimensions to better the accessories market. This worked wonders for Apple, and it shows in the variety of cases, accessories and aftermarket support.

Lastly, tone down Touchwiz and rip out much of what doesn't work. Again, do an Apple and make this the "refinement" generation. Get rid of Kies, Allshare Cast, S-voice and all the Hubs that no one uses unless there's a legitimate improvement over stock. There's too many features on my Note that seem, well, half baked would be charitable: there's grammar and spelling mistakes in the menus that harken back to Engrish and stuff just doesn't work. I know focus (pun intended) isn't Samsung forte but they need to do better or they'll get HTC'ed by one of the Chinese up-and-comers (Huawei is my bet) if they can't up their game.

While we're at it, add the Note's multi-window mode. That actually does work well.

What's with conflating Pentile and AMOLED? They're not related in any way beyond Samsung choosing to use both in the past. My Venue Pro has normal pizel layout with an AMOLED display, and I'm sure it's not the only phone out there. Just because Samsung has tied a good design decision with a bad one in the past doesn't meant they have to keep doing it.

The over-saturation on Galaxy phones is annoying, but that's not a problem with the display technology itself. It's either a software or design issue that could be solved easily enough if Samsun chose to. Chances are they're doing it on purpose to make the colours pop, and while I might not agree with it I understand the reasoning.

It would be nice to have a few display controls such as saturations and contrast on our phones.

For me the most important thing is the battery life - I really do hope more companies start taking that message to heart.

Second to that, I have my fingers crossed hoping for an (eventual) Galaxy SIV mini. I realise that most people seem to like these bigger (4"+) phones, but I'm not a fan of the big touchscreens. I can see the point if you don't have a separate tablet, but they do make the primary function (as a phone) a little less portable/convenient. First and foremost, my phone is a phone, then it is a camera, the a few 'fixed' apps for checking stuff quickly, then a wifi hotspot (for other devices) and last it is for internet access, other apps and games.

I'm not sure why so Samsung is obsessed with the physical home button. Seems like it'd be cheaper and easier to manufacture a phone without a button. Besides, that's what Android for the past 1.5 years has had as standard.

I agree about the camera. I currently have a Droid Bionic and the camera isn't as good as the Droid X I had before. Samsung should be able to get a really good camera on there considering they make cameras and not just phones.

As some have said, the PenTile on my Bionic isn't that great. I can see the tiny gaps for anything that's green or blue, which is annoying. I've always liked the AMOLED screen on my boss' Galaxy and my daughter's S3. It just seems better, even if it's over saturated.

One of the requests I have for an unlocked boot loader. That way I can put CyanogenMod on it without hassle and never worry about updates from Samsung or Verizon, or AT&T, or whomever.

I certainly agree that a back button on the right feels wrong, just for the reason that in every software (browsers,file managers) the back button is on the left. And "back" is usually associated with "left" anyway, at least in left-to-right scripts.

Apart from all that I like on-screen buttons much better anyway. Samsung should put a small trackpad for scrolling the cursor there instead, this would be much more useful. They won't though.

but when I tried navigating my wife's newly purchased iPad, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to get back to where I was without returning to the home screen and drilling through the menus again.

It's not just you. The problem is each app dev gets to put the UI buttons wherever they want. It took me a while the other day on my Fiancee's iPad to go back a screen in an app, turns out you had to tap the app name/logo in the top left, it had no arrow shape or text that said back. Annoying.

I bet "top left" is the very place the back button is in the browser you were using when you wrote this...

My number 1 most desired feature: Something Apple has patented. Because life would be awfully dull without our daily fix of Samsung and Apple fighting like spoilt children in some court of law, somewhere in the world. And if they ever stop it will free up thousands of lawyers to work on something even more damaging to human progress.

I'm all for AMOLED. I like the Nexus 4 screen, but I miss my Nexus S sometimes.

As for Pentile, I think the reason for that is screen longevity. The blue subpixels degrade more quickly over time than the other subpixels. Samsung makes device longevity a priority. Although the pixel degradation problem may have been fixed with newer technology, I don't know.

but when I tried navigating my wife's newly purchased iPad, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to get back to where I was without returning to the home screen and drilling through the menus again.

It's not just you. The problem is each app dev gets to put the UI buttons wherever they want. It took me a while the other day on my Fiancee's iPad to go back a screen in an app, turns out you had to tap the app name/logo in the top left, it had no arrow shape or text that said back. Annoying.

I bet "top left" is the very place the back button is in the browser you were using when you wrote this...

Of course, I often notice a prominent left arrow on my browser button indicating its function. I don't immediately assume that an unmarked button in the top left necessarily means it's the back button either.

I agree with the battery over thickness 100%. I have a Galaxy Nexus and I know there are thinner but I felt like I was going to snap it I half while it was in my pocket.

I want a phone with stock larger battery and a built in casing that makes the phone durable like the Otterbox commuter case I use. I want a solid durable phone that will last more than a couple hours using it straight. I know it's a lot to ask but that's what people want. We are carrying these things around all the time. They shouldn't be fragile just make them small enough to fit in a pocket.

I'd be all up for one of those G'Zone (horrible name) or Catapillar phones if they had the latest technology in them. Instead they are budget phones inserted into a tank.

I'm with Peter on the AMOLED display. I think they are fantastic. The colors are saturation are just far beyond what normal SLCDs look like.

The issues with AMOLED displays are also not inherent to AMOLED, but rather to the pentile implementation, are they not? It seems a bit imprecise, especially for a reviewer, to complain about one when the other is at "fault", such as it is.

I wish they made the corner buttons, whatever functions they make them perform, work a bit more like the buttons on touchpads: still sit flush with the rest of the surface, but with actual tactile feedback on pressing them. With the touch sensitivity extended over the top of the physical buttons, you could then have a secondary functionality for the same area still with haptic feedback if desired.

I commend samsung for being the only manufacturer who is looking to innovate beyond stock android and skins. But another phone OS would be nice since Android is now "Android" save for samsung features. If samsung wants to pull away even more, an alternative phone distribution would be the way to do it. And if they did it, what news it would be. Immediately they'd be #1 and own an entire ecosystem, competing in a space that for now, is exclusively theirs.

I commend samsung for being the only manufacturer who is looking to innovate beyond stock android and skins. But another phone OS would be nice since Android is now "Android" save for samsung features. If samsung wants to pull away even more, an alternative phone distribution would be the way to do it. And if they did it, what news it would be. Immediately they'd be #1 and own an entire ecosystem, competing in a space that for now, is exclusively theirs.

Won't happen until an application ecosystem exists. Samsung is married to Android for now.

As far as features for the GSIV go, a vastly improved battery is the most important thing. If I forget to plug my phone in after work / class, I'm out a phone by 8pm. Actually got lost at a bar once, and could not contact any of my friends because of it.

I completely agree with Casey on almost every point. The only one I'm so-so on is Pentile Amoled. It doesn't really bother me as much as other people, though I can tell it's pentile and I do think SLCD looks better.

But the things about the phone body? Absolutely. Stop with the 5 inch monsters.

And absolutely on the thin front. Phones are as thin as they need to be. People haven't said a phone was too thick since there were flip phones. There's no need to be thinner than even an iphone 4, so stop trying to win that bullet point and start giving us phones that have more battery capacity.

The only point I don't care that much about in the entire post though is the Android 4.2. Since Samsung (and HTC) abominate the OS anyway, I don't think 4.2 really matters much. I don't think it even really mattered that much when I went to CM10 (4.1) to CM10.1 (4.2). A minimal update that most people would be ok without for a little while longer.

1. Quality screen. Get rid of the hideous blue tint. Make it at least partially viewable outdoors.

2. Battery life. It isn't always convenient to swap batteries, and simply putting a monster battery in isn't always a good thing, especially when the device then takes 4-5 hours to charge via usb<->computer. I suspect there's not much Samsung can do here, because Android is most certainly the real culprit.

3. Design. Please ask a human being to design the phone, preferably someone who loves - or at least uses - mobile phones. The GS line desperately needs a better button layout. Here's a good starting point: put buttons for volume control and power anywhere BUT where a normal human being puts their fingers to hold the device.

4. Android. Spare us your crappy software. It appears to have been designed by the same non-human entities who designed the device. The stock Google stuff is a lot nicer.

5. Size. Don't mess with it. I can palm a basketball, yet the GS3 is probably right on the edge of being usable one-handed. The current form is terrific. Leave it alone.

Android is coming along just fine without being wizzed up/on by Samsung; they should just drop the whole TouchWiz act and go with stock Android, to the extent possible in any given hardware configuration. That would eliminate, solve, or reduce several problems, such as icon/menu placement and organization, and speed of updates. They could also reduce their own expenses in development and testing. Being the largest Android handset maker, a step away from their current role in fragmentation and update delays would do the entire Android ecosystem some good, and might even encourage feature contributions to the (allegedly) open Android OS. (I'll move the line on apps, though - if they want to push Samsung-branded apps through the Google Play store, they could certainly do that. Just make their wiz kids keeps their hands out of the OS.)

By and large, I don't care about the listed items. I don't mind pentile (I neither particularly like nor dislike it), I can adapt to buttons, etc.

However, I would like the standard battery to be roughly equivalent to what's now an extended battery. Adding a few mm to the depth of the phone would not only be acceptable, to me, but desireable. Most modern phones are actually too thin for comfort for me.

but when I tried navigating my wife's newly purchased iPad, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to get back to where I was without returning to the home screen and drilling through the menus again.

It's not just you. The problem is each app dev gets to put the UI buttons wherever they want. It took me a while the other day on my Fiancee's iPad to go back a screen in an app, turns out you had to tap the app name/logo in the top left, it had no arrow shape or text that said back. Annoying.

I bet "top left" is the very place the back button is in the browser you were using when you wrote this...

Of course, I often notice a prominent left arrow on my browser button indicating its function. I don't immediately assume that an unmarked button in the top left necessarily means it's the back button either.

An app that has an unmarked button there is a bit silly, usually it's a button in the shape of an arrow there and/or one that actually says where it goes to, these aren't all that hard to find, really.

Android's way of using a button with an arrow (in Samsung's case even on the right side) for lots of different things (like "back", "Cancel", "Save", ...) isn't perfect either. Especially if it doesn't go "back" all the time (like when you hit the home button to glance at an widget and hit back you won't return to the app you came from -- you have to pick it out from the multitasking list again).

1) Android 4.2It won't be updated often enough, but there'll be an international version that you can install anything the community creates for those that care enough.

2) A non-AMOLED display (or maybe not?)Later you complain about battery life but want to push for a mom-AMOLED screen, at the very least it's worth it for the batter savings, especially if you keep the UI as dark as possible.

3) Keep the size manageableCouldn't agree more, it seems like people even struggle to justify the size of the S3, it's one of the reasons I haven't even considered upgrading my S2.

4) Adhere to button standardsNo, No, No. I love my physical buttons. They work well when your phone's mostly in portrait and you're used to them.

5) Think of the battery life!Samsung Android devices seem to be pretty reliable in delivering some of the best battery lives.

An app that has an unmarked button there is a bit silly, usually it's a button in the shape of an arrow there and/or one that actually says where it goes to, these aren't all that hard to find, really.

Android's way of using a button with an arrow (in Samsung's case even on the right side) for lots of different things (like "back", "Cancel", "Save", ...) isn't perfect either. Especially if it doesn't go "back" all the time (like when you hit the home button to glance at an widget and hit back you won't return to the app you came from -- you have to pick it out from the multitasking list again).

It doesn't mean all those things, it only means "back" (more like "up" in Windows). Settings aren't saved when hitting the button but when you change them. The homescreen is as far back as you can go, just like the desktop is as far "up" as you can go in Windows Explorer.

What i want is a limited number of hardware variations, instead of the current batch of (mainly usa) carrier variants, which will hopefully lower the bitching about firmware updates.Also fuck thinness, the phones already light enough, give me a fat battery to power the massive cpu for longer.

things like stock keyboard and notification center enhancements that Samsung is likely to chuck in favor of its TouchWiz UI anyway

Samsung's keyboard is the worst thing to happen to computing since Windows Me.

Yes, but they also include Swype, and have been including it for a long time, one of the best keyboards for Android.

It's not particularly obvious to all users that "keyboards" are apps that can be switched out or purchased. When work switched me from iOS to Android, I went nuts for a while trying to use the Samsung "keyboard" until someone told me about SwiftKey. I had almost resigned myself to just making phone calls and not typing anything on the phone.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.